


Are We Friends or Are We More?

by Hemmovation



Category: SF9 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 16:06:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14918531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hemmovation/pseuds/Hemmovation
Summary: You and Rowoon have been friends for years, even into college. What happens when you feel like he's replacing you? Are you friends and nothing more?





	Are We Friends or Are We More?

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not re-post, translate, or upload my work to any other site without my permission.

I was walking through the center part of campus on my way to my next class when I heard my name being called from somewhere behind me. Suddenly my best friend Rowoon was racing up behind me, his long legs carrying him so fast that he practically tackled me. “Oh my God, Rowoon, are you trying to kill me? You’re gigantic and one of these days you’re going to accidentally break me,” I frowned, readjusting my bag as he walked beside me.

“Sorry,” he laughed. “I just got really excited and there’s something I wanted to tell you, and when I saw you I just ran for it.” He smiled sheepishly at me, clearly feeling guilty about almost taking me down.

Rowoon and I had been friends since high school, and college wasn’t any different. We spent almost all our free time together and we were so excited when we both got accepted to the same university. We lived in the same dorm and even though our class schedules were pretty different, we always made time to see each other.

“What’s so exciting that you ran across campus to tell me?” I laughed. This was so like Rowoon. He was a pretty shy person normally, but when it came to me, that was out the window. He was one of the loudest and weirdest people I knew, but I loved him for it.

“You know that music program I was telling you about? The one that I auditioned for last week along with basically every other student in this school that’s interested in music? Well, I found out today that I got accepted into the program and I get to start it next term!” He was practically screaming, and I could see how happy he was about this. Rowoon loved performing and writing music, and he was good at it too. Even in spite of his abnormal height he was a great dancer, and I loved watching him perform in school events when we were younger.

“Rowoon, oh my God! That’s amazing! I told you that you could do it. I’m so proud of you!” I pulled him into a hug, and he was still grinning from ear to ear. When we separated from our hug, he continued walking with me to my class. “Have you told your family yet? I’m sure they’ll be so happy for you. This is a huge deal! We should celebrate tonight, yeah?”

“Yes! Please, I would love to celebrate. No, I haven’t told my family yet. I wanted to tell you first because you always support me no matter what. I’ll see you after class, okay?” With that he turned and started heading back towards the dorm, pulling out his phone and calling his family to tell them the good news.

After my class had finished, I went back to my room, changing into something a little nicer than my jeans and sweatshirt. I texted Rowoon, offering to meet him at 6 for dinner and we could go to one of the nicer restaurants in the shopping district that was near campus. He happily agreed, telling me he’d see me then. Celebrating with him was nice. He explained to me more about the program and how this could lead to him getting into the music industry, and he was so excited. It made me happy to see him getting something he deserved. It turned out that out of the over 700 students that had applied and auditioned for the program, only 15 were accepted. That meant that Rowoon was in the top 15 music students in our school. It was impressive, and I knew that his hard work would pay off.

Sadly, the next few days I didn’t see Rowoon much besides at dinner and in passing, but I didn’t mind too much, knowing that I was busy studying for exams and he was finalizing his entry into the music program. We had gotten the chance to text each other back and forth, but that was nearly all we’d had time for. He told me he had gotten the chance to make some friends in the music program and it sounded like he was really enjoying it.

Before I knew it, it had been nearly two weeks since I had seen Rowoon in person for more than around 30 seconds. I was starting to really miss my best friend, and even though I knew he was busy with school work and I was too, it hurt not to see him because we always made time for each other. Every time I had offered to get dinner with him, he would say he had either already eaten or he was planning on getting dinner with some of the other music students. Finally, I’d had enough of this, so after class one day I went straight to Rowoon’s room, loudly knocking on the door. Much to my dismay, it wasn’t Rowoon who answered. It was his roommate.

“Where is Rowoon? I need to talk to him,” I asked, my tone sharp. I hadn’t intended to be so rude, but after I had made so many attempts to see him, all of which were ignored, I wasn’t exactly happy with my best friend.

Rowoon’s roommate looked quite shocked to see me there, shrugging his shoulders and mumbling something about how I should know since I’m his best friend. “I think he said he was going to spend some time in the music building with some kids from his class.” I didn’t give him time to say anything else before I was practically stomping down the hallway, making my way to the music building.

Luckily the music building wasn’t too far from our dorm, but it was far enough away that I had enough time to overthink some more and let my blood boil. Pushing the doors open, I looked around the building trying to find a general sitting area or somewhere that students might hang out when they weren’t in class. I walked towards the sound of talking and laughing, figuring that was my best bet for finding Rowoon. When I entered the room, Rowoon was sitting at a table in the corner, a couple people I recognized from his classes sitting next to him. As I approached the table, the girl who was with him looked up, and after giving me a once over, she noticed the angry expression on my face and nudged Rowoon as if to signal him to look up. Her simple action only fueled my anger, because how did she know I was here for Rowoon and not the other guy with them? Who does she think she is getting close to my best friend.

Rowoon looked up, the surprise on his face evident as I got closer. “Hey! It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. What are you doing here?” His expression changed from surprised to happy to confused, all within about 5 seconds.

“Where the hell have you been? I haven’t seen you in like two weeks, Rowoon! I know you’re busy, but you haven’t even been responding to my texts now,” my voice started off angry, but as I continued talking, my tone only became sad. I missed my best friend. Even though there wasn’t anything exciting happening in my life at the moment, it was still nice to see him all the time. We would always talk about our day and he could always make me laugh. It was lonely by myself. I didn’t mind him having other friends, but we swore we would always make time for each other, and lately that wasn’t happening.

Rowoon looked taken aback at my outburst before he saw how sad and upset I looked. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you. It’s just… we’ve been so busy with the new program that I kind of forgot about everything else,” he explained, standing up from the table to walk over to me.

“Rowoon, we don’t just ‘forget’ about each other. What happened to making time for each other?” I was getting close to tears now, and I hadn’t realized until then that this whole thing had made me this upset. I didn’t want to cry around all of these people either, especially not with whoever this girl was watching Rowoon and me. I blinked the tears back, thinking about how angry this made me instead, shifting my weight to one side and crossing my arms.

“Hey, I’m sorry, okay? Best friends forever, right? Isn’t that what you said? I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” He gave me a light smile, his hands resting on either of my shoulders.

“Yeah, best friends, that’s what I said. But being best friends usually requires effort from both parties, which I haven’t received a whole lot of lately,” I grumbled, shaking his hands off me. “I’ve tried talking to you every day for the past two weeks, and the most I’ve seen you has been in passing on our way to or from class. You haven’t even bothered to send me a text back, Rowoon. I’m angry, and I’m hurt. You can’t even text me back but you’re here with your other friends seemingly having the time of your life. So, find yourself a new best friend, because the position is open. Goodbye, Rowoon.” Before I turned to walk away, I could see the color drain from his cheeks as his face fell. There were tears welling in his eyes, and he looked absolutely devastated.

As I left the building, the tears that had been threatening to fall finally spilled, staining my cheeks. I can’t believe I just did that. I don’t even entirely know why I did that. Rowoon was my best friend, and we had been through practically everything together. He was the person I was closest to in this world, and now I was alone. I was stupid for doing that, but he was drifting away anyways, and I would rather be the one to end it than to watch him slowly leave me.

That night I didn’t sleep very well, tossing and turning all night. I had cried myself to sleep when I tried to go to bed, but after that I felt like I had slept for all of 5 minutes. Dragging myself out of bed, I readied myself for the day, wanting nothing more than to just crawl back into bed. I could already feel that I probably wasn’t going to be able to focus on my classes today, but I had to go because exams were in a few days. It was difficult to even think about my exams because of how hurt I was about ending my friendship with Rowoon. Even though I hadn’t had many friends because I was perfectly okay with just having Rowoon, I was pretty sure this wasn’t what it was like to lose someone who was just a friend. Over the past 12 hours I’d had a lot of time to think, and I was slowly beginning to realize that the way I felt towards Rowoon was more than a friend. He was there for me through so much, and I honestly couldn’t think of someone I’d rather spend my time with. I had feelings for my best friend…my ex best friend… I wasn’t really sure what to do with this sudden realization, but thankfully I didn’t have time to overthink it.

My professor ended our lecture around 10 minutes early, allowing all of us to leave and go do whatever. Since that was the last class I had for the day, I left the lecture hall, debating whether or not I really wanted to go back to my room. I didn’t really feel like being cooped up inside the small space, but I had no energy or desire to go anywhere and do something. I finally decided I would go to one of the more secluded cafes on campus that was near my dorm. It was a place that I found easy to study in. It was quiet and not very many students went there, especially not this late in the day. Walking through the door I was met with warm air and the fresh smell of ground coffee, the feeling of both instantly making me feel at home. I loved this little café. It was nice for when I wanted to be alone and away from my roommate. There were times Rowoon and I had come here to study, and we would get so into things like people watching that we could spend the entire day here. I was lucky that my favorite barista was here today. I walked up to the counter and she already knew my order, giving me a warm smile as she took the money from me.

After I got my drink, I went to my favorite corner of the café, sliding into the booth that was there. I pulled my notebook from my bag, setting most of my homework out on the table in front of me. If I was going to be miserable and sit here for a while, the least I could do was take my mind off my pain and get some of my work done. A few people were in and out of the café, so I paid no mind to them. It wasn’t until I heard heavy footsteps coming near me that I bothered to look up from my papers. The sight in front of me shocked me.

Rowoon stood on the opposite side of the table, eyes scanning my face. His eyes were red, and his hair was disheveled, indicating he had been running his hands through it. It was something he did when he was stressed, often tugging at the soft strands. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you, and I wasn’t trying to ignore you, really. I was just so excited about the music program, a-and I wanted to get to know some of the other people that were in it. How do I make this better? I’m not going to let you end our friendship, especially not like this. You mean too much for me to let you go, more than you could ever know,” he sighed, playing with the hem of his shirt.

It was silent between us for a moment, and I almost thought he was going to leave, but instead he walked around the table, sliding into the booth with me.

“Rowoon, I-,” I paused, staring at him and unsure where to go with this. I had no clue what to say to him, because even though I had probably overreacted, I was still incredibly upset. I never really thought Rowoon would have neglected our friendship. I also never thought I would fall in love with my best friend, but that’s beside the point. I took a deep breath, trying to steady my pounding heart. “I don’t think I want to be friends with you… I don’t think I can be, at least not with how I feel.” His face fell with my words, not understanding the meaning behind them, and I was quick to try and rephrase. “It isn’t what you think! I love you, I really do. It’s just… I love you more than I should. I think I’m in love with you…” I looked up at him through my eyelashes, scared of his reaction.

His mouth fell open at my confession, his eyes wide. “You love me? Is that why you tried to end our friendship?” He shook his head, appalled at my words.

“Well, I – no. That wasn’t the reason I was ending things, not entirely at least. I was angry with you for neglecting me and our friendship, so I went to find you to talk to you about it. Then I saw you with that other girl, and it kind of just sparked something within me. So, I went off on you and let my emotions get the best of me. I get it if you don’t feel the same and think it’s too weird to be my friend still. I’ll understand,” I sighed, looking down and attempting to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill.

“No!” he was almost too quick to answer, his voice loud and sharp. “I mean, no I don’t want to not be friends with you! But I also don’t think we can go on as we were,” he told me, his words slower and more thought out.

I frowned at what he told me. “I get it. It’s fine.” I began to gather my things, shuffling papers around so that I could leave.

Rowoon quickly grabbed my wrist, preventing me from packing my things. “No, that isn’t what I meant. What I mean is that I love you too, and I don’t want to be just friends. You are my best friend, but you’re also more than that. You’ve always been more than that. I never knew how to tell you, and I didn’t think you’d feel the same, so I pushed my feelings away. I could never replace you as my best friend though.”

We both fell silent as he looked at me, neither of us really sure where to go from here. I had no clue how to respond because my best friend and I just confessed our feelings for each other. Before I could entirely process what was happening, Rowoon took one of my hands in his, the other tucking some hair behind my ear. Cupping my cheek and lightly running his fingers across my skin, he leaned closer, testing to see if I would pull away. When I didn’t, he closed the distance between us, gently pressing his lips against mine. His lips were warm and soft, slowly moving against mine. The kiss was careful but passionate, and I could feel his emotions being put into the kiss. It was over much faster than I wanted it to be, and when he pulled away, he stayed close, resting his forehead against mine.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how long I’ve been waiting to do that. God, I love you so much,” he breathed, pressing his lips to mine once more, hands tangled in my hair.

“I love you too, Rowoon.”


End file.
